Meta and Google trial: are infinite scroll and autoplay creating addicts?
It was as “easy as ABC”, claimed the lawyer prosecuting a landmark social media harm case against Meta and Google which heard closing arguments this week.The defendants were guilty, said Mark Lanier, of “addicting the brains of children”.Not true, replied the tech companies.Meta insisted providing young people with a “safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work”.Features such as autoplay videos, infinite scrolling and constantly chirruping alerts woven into the fabric of online platforms were central to the six-week trial in Los Angeles, which has been compared to the cases against tobacco companies in the 1990s.
But how do these features work and what are their consequences? Are they creating addicts rather than users or are they just giving consumers more of what they want?There was a time when social media feeds ended.Now the scroll never stops.“There is always something more that will give you another dopamine hit that you react to and there is an infinite supply of that,” said Arturo Béjar, a whistleblower who worked in child online safety at Meta until 2021.“The promise of these things is that there is always going to be something interesting and rewarding and there is a never-ending supply.That is the mechanic of infinite scroll.
” Internal documents surfaced in the trial showed that other Meta employees were worried about signs of rising “reward tolerance” among users.One email conversation in 2020 showed one person referring to Instagram saying: “Oh my gosh y’all IG is a drug.” A colleague responds: “Lol, I mean, all social media.We’re basically pushers.”Béjar told the Guardian: “You are constantly chasing and even when you find what you are chasing … there is the promise of something else that catches your attention right after and with no bounds on that part of the mechanism.
” Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics said: “When you watch young people scroll through their feed, they flip really, really fast,They make split-second decisions to swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, watch, swipe, swipe, watch,There is always a feeling that the next thing could be good and it’s only going to be another second or two,”Videos that autoplay are now everywhere from the Netflix homescreen to YouTube and Instagram,But according to Béjar, who was at Facebook when it became standard, consumers “hated it”.
“They found it disruptive,” he said.“The result was that more people watched more videos and advertisers were happy, but users were unhappy.”Autoplay, he explained, “triggers that reaction we all have as humans to watch enough to understand what is going on”.Lanier compared endless scroll and autoplay to getting free tortilla chips at a restaurant and not being able to stop eating them.Notifications and likes are other parts of the social media apparatus that keep people, especially children, hooked.
Mark Griffith, professor emeritus of behavioural addiction at Nottingham Trent University said that winning the competition for likes, is “a rewarding thing that gives you that little hit of enjoyment”,“When you enjoy something, your body produces dopamine and your body produces adrenaline pointers,” he said,“You produce lots of pleasure chemicals,And you know that in a way you’re becoming addicted to your own body’s endorphins,” It is not, however, the same as addiction to nicotine or cocaine, he said.
“For some people it’s genuinely addictive,” he said,“But by my criteria for addiction, very few people would fulfil that,” He talked about social media’s “moreish quality” instead,Social media consumption mostly falls into the categories of “habitual use”, which can affect productivity and relationships without necessarily ruining your life, and “problematic use” which has more serious implications,Giving evidence this week, Instagram’s chief executive, Adam Mosseri, insisted social media was not “clinically addictive”.
People could be addicted to social media in the same way that they could be addicted to a good television show, but that was not the same thing, he said.Jurors in the case against Meta and Google in Los Angeles began their deliberations on Friday.Their verdict will be closely watched as it could redefine tech companies’ responsibilities for their platform design.
Ideson claims Paralympics curling gold for Canada with last shot against China
Canada have returned to the summit of wheelchair curling, edging out the reigning champions, China, 4-3 to earn their fourth gold medal in this blue riband event at the Winter Paralympics. A tense encounter was decided by the very last shot of the match as skipper Mark Ideson struck a perfectly judged hit and roll to take a solitary, definitive point in the eighth end.Both teams had entered the final in impressive form. The only defeat for China had come at the hands of the Canadians in the round robin stage, with the North Americans themselves unbeaten. In front of a full house in the Cortina curling arena, and with loud partisan support for both sides, it was a match of nip and tuck
Ireland overpower Scotland to claim triple crown and throw down Six Nations title gauntlet
In sporting vernacular Scotland have long looked on Dublin as a “hard place to go”. Roughly an hour’s flight time from Edinburgh, they get to stay in a decent hotel, play in a relatively modern stadium with good facilities, against modestly resourced opponents, and in conditions they could never describe as alien. Despite this comforting familiarity, ever since Dan Parks nailed a touchline penalty at Croke Park in 2010 to scuttle Ireland’s triple crown voyage the Scots have associated this fixture with trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube wearing oven gloves.On it goes. Faced with the losing run in the fixture hitting a dozen, Scotland did their best to change the narrative
‘Every lap is survival’: Max Verstappen reflects on F1 Chinese GP qualifying woe
Max Verstappen condemned his Red Bull’s performance as having reduced his efforts to a matter of “survival” in merely trying to complete a lap in Shanghai.From the off the four-time champion had not been happy in the buildup to Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, dismissing his car on Friday as undriveable and saying: “We have never had anything this bad.”Verstappen qualified only in eighth and finished the sprint out of the points in ninth on Saturday morning. There had been hope setup changes would reap some reward in qualifying but Verstappen was left even further adrift. He finished a full second slower than the pole-sitter, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli
Former NBA star Chris Washburn reflects on drugs, downfall and second chances
When the Golden State Warriors drafted Chris Washburn with the No 3 pick in 1986, it should have been a dream come true. Instead, it might have been the worst thing that could have happened for the 6ft 11in NC State prospect.“I put on a smile because they were paying me to be out there,” Washburn, a former three-time high school All-American, tells the Guardian. “But I felt alone.”Oakland was just about as far as you could get from Washburn’s hometown of Hickory, North Carolina
Formula One: Antonelli takes pole in Chinese GP qualifying ahead of Russell – as it happened
But that’s about all that’s required from me. I’ll be back with you tomorrow to take you through all the action from the race, where the youngest pole sitter in F1 history will look to go coast-to-coast.Be sure to check back in soon for Giles Richards’ full report.Haha, Kimi’s father Marco Antonelli is on the broadcast. Positive but with a sting in the tail
Kimi Antonelli takes historic pole for F1’s Chinese GP after George Russell’s sprint race win
There was an inescapable sense of joy and satisfaction for Kimi Antonelli as he became the youngest pole sitter in Formula One history. Tellingly, there was an air of vindication from his Mercedes principal, Toto Wolff, as the teenage protege came good when it mattered by claiming the top spot for the Chinese Grand Prix.The Italian took pole by beating his older and more experienced teammate George Russell into second, albeit after the Briton endured a technical problem in Q3 and had time to set only one quick lap.Antonelli was ecstatic, of course, but Wolff was no less punchy. He had faced criticism after drafting Antonelli straight into Mercedes last season but on Saturday Antonelli delivered on all that promise and has every chance now to convert it into a debut win on Sunday
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